Wednesday, December 01, 2010

A dilemma

So I have the opportunity to reunite for lunch (routinely) with at least half a dozen moms from the moms group I was a part of a decade ago. Back then, I was very active, a leader, and a guest speaker twice. For part of it, I was married, but essentially single, and for the rest I was actually single. I left after about five years when my membership was up and my enthusiasm had whittled down. Mostly, my son had started school and I had little in common with new members and their new babies.

Therein lies the rub.

A number of this lunch club spit out babies at will or several had them by accident. One in particular (loathe is too nice a word) trapped her poor husband into procreating without appropriate notice for her last two...out of five. At an after-meeting with just her, another mom, and me, I once told her that I could hit her in the face after another one of her rubs. And I could have. She knew I suffered with infertility and yet took every chance she could to remind me of her fertility.

Sorry, but I tell few that I am atheist, however if you carry on about your religion to me repeatedly in a holier than thou fashion as if it is the only life choice, I will offer an alternative viewpoint. Strongly.

In either situation, I am strangely viewed as the bad guy, which is something I am trying to prevent this time. See, I was the poor single mom who did not have a hubby daddy to buy me a McMansion and a Lexus. Fine, I don't see any of that changing. What did change, though, in addition to many years of reading and crying with infertility blogs, was my art emphasis, my professionalism, and my esteem.

In fact, the only reason I learned these moms still get together was because the nicest among them saw my art at my gallery over Thanksgiving and took the time to look me up and email. Then she asked if I'd be interested in lunch, which of course should not be as earth-shaking as it feels.

Bea accuses me of too much self promotion, considering it akin to attention seeking, but I call it appropriate marketing b/c I am a small business. If I were to go to a lunch with them, I would have to let the babies, riches, new cars, and grand houses all fall to the side, b/c I would get to toot my own horn about something special I was born with and am taking the time to capitalize on. I would not care about their viewing my art or a sale and would never elaborate on the snicker-value of sexual orientation. I just would want them to know that I am in national shows, win awards, get juried in exhibits routinely, and have my own juried gallery position(s). (There may be another coming.)

The art part feels good. Revisiting infertility, or rather the massive fertility of others, does not. Which would you choose?

5 comments:

Cricket said...

I am considering not going b/c the one I do like would relate about finding me and catching up with me again. All the exposure and none of the drama! Guess it depends on how healthy I feel when it comes round.

Shinny said...

You know me, Pollyanna, sometimes anyway. ;) You can look at that you gave birth to your creativity and have been raising your talent as well as your gorgeous redheaded boy.
I know you may want to hit me but this second kid at 40 sucks sometimes. Especially when she has her first cold as an intelligent being and refuses to let you wipe the snot off her face. Keep those days in mind. ;) Yes you can hit me, I know you want to.

Cricket said...

I'm up for the hitting of any smugly fertile bitch, but Shanna you do not qualify for that!

I haven't heard back from the one who was emailing me, but I think Jewish holidays might be her primary concern right now. At least I have been given the opportunity to think about the situation ahead of time and I'm happy about that.

Val said...

I will just repeat my dad's awesome comment from Thanksgiving (unfortunately P & Z & I were running late, so I heard about it secondhand):
The family was gathered for the announcement of another pregnancy (my cousin's 4th; I think she's trying to catch up to M & S, who each have 5) - her mother proudly remarked that "someone has been pregnant each year for the past 17 Thanksgivings", & my dad popped off:
"Don't they know about BIRTH CONTROL?"

Cricket said...

Val, your dad would be a great one to have in your corner!